I remember everyone saying how you had Fred Biletnikoff hands. I'd try to block a defensive lineman after snapping the ball to Al Vesser, then look up to see the ball magically glue itself to the fingertips of number 53. That was the first time I ever remember being awed by a peer.
Dad died a year prior to this team photo. And the coach asked my mom not to sign me up again for football saying, "Your son is terrific at only one thing... helping people off the pile." It was the last year #61 put on the pads.
You were close to me even then. And I'm still in awe of you.
This morning I read another of Catherine Doherty's letters. Thinking of all the ways I have been defensive since Pee Wee football, these words describe the great desire of my heart, the place where Christ dwells:
A defenseless person is a trusting and meek person, a person full of faith, with a heart of a child to whom belongs the kingdom of heaven. People who are defenseless are open to all the pain and thrusts of the knives of other people's words, glances and deeds, because they are strong in faith and strong in love; because they don't retaliate, nor defend themselves; in a word, they are meek. They are not hurt, for the sharp arrows of words and deeds bounce off the shield of meekness and fall at the feet of the attacker and the attacked.
Oh, what manner of love is this that our Lord has given to us!
To be meek and defenseless.
To drop the passes and the pads.
To stop protecting and pretending.
To no longer be a Pee Wee.
